This invention relates to coated particles and more particularly to particles having a conformal coating thereon. More particularly, this invention relates to phosphors and still more particularly to electroluminescent phosphors having thereon a coating that protects the phosphor from moisture absorption and greatly increases the life and efficacy.
Coated phosphors are known from U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,585,673; 4,825,124; 5,080,928; 5,118,529; 5,156,885; 5,220,243; 5,244, 750; and 5,418,062. It is known from some of the just-mentioned patents that a coating precursor and oxygen can be used to apply a protective coating. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,244,750 and 4,585,673. The coating processes in several of the others of these patents employ chemical vapor deposition to apply a protective coating by hydrolysis. Additionally, the above-cited U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/153,978, filed Sep. 16, 1998, now abandoned, discloses a method for coating phosphor particles by chemical vapor deposition and using an oxygen/ozone reactant. The latter process operates in the absence of water or water vapor. The above-cited U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/177,226, filed Oct. 22, 1998, now abandoned, discloses an improvement to the oxygen/ozone process which further increases the life and efficacy by first saturating the phosphor with a precursor before beginning the deposition. It would be a still further advance in the art to increase the efficacy and the life of such coated phosphors even more.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to obviate the disadvantages of the prior art.
It is another object of the invention to enhance the operation of coated phosphors.
Yet another object of the invention is the provision of a phosphor coating method that does not employ water or water vapor.
These objects are accomplished, in one aspect of the invention, by a method of coating phosphor particles with the steps comprising: introducing an inert gas into a reaction vessel; charging phosphor particles into said reaction vessel; heating said reaction vessel to a reaction temperature; introducing a coating precursor which includes carbon into said reaction vessel for a time sufficient to saturate said phosphor particles with said precursor; continuing precursor flow into said reaction vessel; introducing an oxygen/ozone mixture into said reaction vessel, said oxygen/ozone mixture comprising less than 4.4 wt. % ozone; and maintaining said inert gas flow, oxygen/ozone mixture flow and further precursor supply for a time sufficient to coat said phosphor particles.
It has been found that, when during the above-cited process, the ozone generator is operated at far less than maximum efficiency and the coating precursor contains carbon, a phosphor particle will be produced having a coating which contains from about 2200 to about 6300 ppm carbon. These phosphor particles, when used to manufacture electroluminescent lamps, provide lamps having efficacies in the range of 6.1 to 7.7 lumens/watt, far in excess of the 3.3 lumens/watt of the control.